Tag Archives: Animas River

The top VA officials responsible for bungling construction at the VA hospital in Aurora and are accused of lying to Congress about the cost overruns won’t be prosecuted by the Justice Department for perjury.

Despite proof by the House Veterans Affairs Committee that the executives perjured themselves to hide the monumental mismanagement, government claims there is not

The VA’s inspector general, an internal watchdog, said last year that (Glenn) Haggstrom knew the project was veering toward huge cost overruns but didn’t tell lawmakers when he testified before Congress in 2013 and 2014. That prompted lawmakers to call for the perjury investigation of Haggstrom and (Stella) Fiotes.

U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman released the Justice Department letter to the AP, and said “there is clear evidence that they intentionally misled Congress.”

We can’t think of a time when entrenched bureaucrats held each other responsible for their actions, be it perjury, improper spending, or polluting the Animas River.

Sounds like the swamp is still gurgling in Washington, and not all of the alligators have been captured.

We hope this does not portend what will happen when the EPA gets around to reexamining the Gold King Mine spill. The VA conclusion is truly disappointing.

A New Mexico law firm has substantially lowered its claims for clients that wanted $1.2 billion in damages from the Gold King Mine spill caused by the EPA.

That means there are now $420 million in claims from farmers, recreation owners and residents, mostly down south, who say the EPA owes them money, the AP reports.

Then we get a little double-speak on whether the money might actually get paid, all speculation of course.

It’s uncertain whether the White House and Congress — both now controlled by the GOP — will pay for any of the economic losses, even though Republicans were among the most vocal in demanding the EPA make good on the harm.

Under former President Barack Obama, a Democrat, the EPA said it was prohibited by law from doing so.

Republicans have vowed to slash spending on the environment, leaving the prospects for compensation in doubt.

So Republicans were the most vocal in demanding the EPA pay up, but because the GOP is allegedly slashing spending on the environment compensation is in doubt?

That’s a bit of apples and oranges juggling, because the Republican White House is looking to scale back millions in lobbying spending on questionable climate change programs.

That has nothing to do with the environmental damage actually caused by the previous administration.

Our speculation is that individuals whose livelihoods were harmed by the government will see compensation. It’s a pretty stout amount though, and the recent subtraction of $900 million from a handful of New Mexico property owners shows the final number might still need some tweaking.

Meanwhile, we’re still waiting for that RSVP from the new EPA administrator to U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner’s invitation to come down here and meet with the folks himself and tour the mine to make the actual decision.

While liberals bureaucrats are screaming over at the EPA that the sky is falling, Chief Pruitt took the first steps towards repaying Colorado communities for costs associated with that spill they caused nearly two years ago at the Gold King Mine.

The check for more than $54,000 was cut to pay for travel, payroll and other indirect costs is a direct result of legislation written by U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner that required repayment beyond the Obama administration’s arbitrary deadline.

“Within a month of Administrator Pruitt being confirmed to lead the EPA, he is taking the first steps to live up to his commitment to the people of Colorado,” said Gardner. “I applaud this decision to further pay out the Tribe and local governments in an effort to make Colorado whole from the EPA-born Gold King Mine spill.”

We’re still waiting to hear whether Pruitt will take Gardner up on his invitation to visit Colorado and meet with the communities affected.

We know Pruitt has a lot on his plate right now, holding the hands of frightened paper-pushers who won’t get to spend as much money to waste on feel-good, but accomplish nothing programs at the agency.

U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner sent a formal invitation, and we hope it’s engraved, to new EPA Chief Pruitt inviting him to visit southwest Colorado and hold public meetings with residents to hear directly how that agency’s mine spill has affected lives.

Pruitt made a commitment during his confirmation hearings to compensate those affected by the spill in 2015, which sent three million gallons of toxic waste through Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, crossing two reservations of the Southern Utes and Navajos.

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy stated that the EPA took full responsibility for the disaster, but refused to fully reimburse the affected states, local and tribal governments for response costs, which is contrary to Section 5004 of the Water Infrastructure Improvements for the Nation Act passed last Congress.

In January, the EPA also denied the 73 personal injury and economic and business loss claims filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act regarding the spill.

We share the goal of making communities whole from this EPA-born spill. I believe you visiting Southwest Colorado and the EPA conducting a public forum would serve as a great opportunity to hear from these communities directly.

We join Gardner in keeping up the pressure on the EPA to fix those wrongs and fully compensate those affected.

There was another spill at the Gold King Mine last week, and true to form, the EPA didn’t tell anyone about it. It was only after the Durango Herald discovered what happened that it got any media play at all, and we’ve yet to hear a peep out of the Denver Post, “The State’s Largest Newspaper.”

The EPA says the spill was caused by rain, that they followed procedures, which apparently means the public is not to be notified.

An internal alert was sent Aug. 23 among EPA staff members and some local officials, but the EPA did not notify media and the public about the spillage.

“Cement Creek is flowing turbid and discolored due to heavy rains at the Gold King Mine Site,” Brent Maier, congressional liaison for the EPA, wrote in an email with a subject line “Gold King Mine/Cement Creek Alert.”

“This additional water has overwhelmed the recirculation pumps that normally recirculate treated water that has seeped from the sediment filter bags, as the water can contain residual treatment solids. The treated water overflowed the sediment filter bag pad for a short period of time.”

It took the EPA two hours to get the situation under control, although they have not told us how much of the yuck actually spilled or what exactly was in it — precipitated metals, lime, discharge water and solids, Kool Aid, it’s all very vague.

The EPA says the spill “never reached a level” where they needed to notify the public. Which is interesting, because neither did that major spill last year. It wasn’t until we ratted them out that the agency came clean, so to speak.

It appears the Durango Herald only learned about the event through dogged reporting, two days after the spill, after rumors spread when the head gates closed.

Two spills in one year without notifying the public, this is what we have to look forward to when the EPA begins Superfund work up there — secrets and coverups.

The EPA fined itself $50,000 for spilling millions of gallons of mine waste into the Animas River last year and for failing to alert local officials to the water pollution flowing down river.

Just kidding.

The EPA filed suit against a private gold and silver mining company operating near Durango, and the owners of the Wildcat Mining Corp. are negotiating for a $50,000 fine. The EPA has accused them of dumping fill material into a gulch while working on a road, and building a wastewater pond on a mountain wetland.

Mountain wetlands in Colorado, who knew? We used to call it snowmelt.

Meanwhile, we’re still waiting for the federal government to hold itself accountable for the spill, and to pay out the private sector claims and more than 65 federal tort claims against them.

It’s frustrating that the EPA still refuses to hold itself accountable, and even more infuriating that the agency continues to crack the whip on all private companies, sometimes for the slightest infraction.

But such hypocrisy is what we’ve come to expect from the Environmental Pollution Agency and the “transparent” Obama administration.

The Navajo Nation will announce their lawsuit against the EPA today for the massive spill the federal agency triggered last year at the Gold King Mine.

This is not really news to PeakNation™, who has followed the disaster since we first broke the news that the EPA caused the spill. We’ve also been preaching for a year about the double-standard of the agency that levies fines on private industry for much minor offenses, yet does nothing to correct its own flawed governance.

What surprises us, is that CNN, of all news outlets, is starting to recognize that the federal government is not infallible, and reports that this lawsuit will be “serving up a potent election-year issue for Republicans against one of their favorite targets.”

Touching the livelihood of voters in four western states — Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah — the spill could serve as a symbol of government incompetence for Republicans, who have long railed against what they view as the overreach and overregulation of the EPA, especially under President Barack Obama.

For Republican lawmakers struggling to hold their seats as Trump’s poll numbers plummet, the incident is exactly the kind of local issue that GOP strategists believe incumbents in the Mountain West should focus on to draw the spotlight away from the flailing Republican nominee.

CNN also reached out to the EPA for their response on the lawsuit. No surprise, the transparent Obama administration was unavailable for comment.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, remember when the EPA promised they would take responsibility for their disastrous mine water spill into the Animas River?

Not only are the feds desperately trying to shift responsibility for the actual spill, they have refused to pay one single private sector claim or more than 65 federal tort claims against them.

That’s according to U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, who took the agency to task in an editorial published in the Durango Herald marking the one year anniversary of the federal government’s crime.

If a private company accidentally did what the EPA most assuredly did, the federal government would have levied fines, put them out of business, or both.

Instead, Gardner is having to lobby Congress to pass the Gold King Accountability and Compensation for Taxpayers Act, that orders the EPA to process and pay these claims.

Gardner also reminded us that it was a full five days after the spill before the EPA set up a command center and put on their public face of “nothing to see here.”

Because of the EPA’s communication failure, lack of coordination with local officials and disbursement of factually incorrect information, frustration mounted – and rightly so – over the need for a timely release of a simple, straightforward interpretation of the water quality monitoring data from the EPA.

That inspector’s general investigation report can’t come soon enough. Hopefully, that will happen before we are celebrating the spill’s second anniversary.

Today marks the one year anniversary of the Gold King Mine spill but it wouldn’t be prudent to start the celebration until the anniversary of when we started to find out it happens, which begins tomorrow.

Silverton will host the snarky shindig to mark the occasion and its newly designated Superfund status with Super Fun Day, and a specially brewed IPA EPA by Golden Block Brewery that looks like a bloody orange mud mix, just like their river did last year.

The EPA has dumped a massive amounts of documents on reporters as part of a Freedom of Information Act request for information pertaining to the equally massive dump of mine water the agency released into the Animas River last year.

We suspect it’s Colorado’s anniversary gift from the feds, in particular the Durango Herald, which has so far sifted through 50 of the 29,126 individually linked PDFs they received.

No labels, no table of contents, just a big massive dump on a Friday evening — a technique first perfected by the Clinton administration to frustrate media investigations into their crocked regime.

What did those documents reveal about the investigation? Where to meet for dinner, and newspaper clips about their handiwork.

Is the EPA making it intentionally difficult for the Durango Herald to probe for wrongdoing?

Without a doubt.

There might actually be a needle in that haystack, a smoking gun communication that lays the blame of the spill at the EPA’s feet.

But quite frankly, we suspect the Herald would have better luck if they requested emails from the personal accounts of EPA employees, because that’s how this Obama administration practices transparency — by hiding how they conduct the people’s business.